Clean sweep to start the season
The Brisbane Golf Club started their 2024 BDGA Div 1 Pennant season perfectly last Sunday against Royal Queensland with a clean sweep.
BGC defeatied RQ 15-6 overall with wins in each division across Opens, Masters and Juniors.
RQ finished the season last year on the same number of points on the top of the table in 2023, with BGC winning the pennant on a superior for and against after defeating RQ in the last game of the year. A tough match was therefore expected with RQ looking to get one back on BGC.
Our Opens, led by Billy Dowling at number one, secured 8.5 points out of a possible 11 points with 8 wins, 1 squared match and just 2 losses. This is a wonderful result away with the team winning the first 8 matches in from number 11 to number 4. Lachlan Jones dropped down the order due to illness but despite that challenge was first off the course with a remarkable 7&6 win. Ben Stieler also won 7&6. The other winners included Craig Mahon who added to his outstanding pennant record with a 6&5 win, Mitchell Vesper (2&1), Ilija Soldan (2&1), debutant Josh Liston (5&4), Campbell Kerr (6&5) and Chris Somerfield.
Our Masters were also impressive defeating RQ 3.5-1.5. Ian Burgess produced a remarkable up and down from the practice putting green to square his match. Steve Ward won playing for the first time for BGC 5&3 and Stephen Dean playing in his 41st pennant season also winning 2&1.
The Juniors were missing recently crowned Queensland Junior Amateur Champion, Chase Oberle, who was overseas playing golf in the US, but came back after being down in 4 of their 5 matches through 9 holes to win 3-2. Our 2024 Junior Club Champion, Elijah Rohas-Smith winning 4&3 on debut along with Tony Cho (1up). Taj Egea and Thomas King did a great job to square their matches.
In Round 2, BGC will play Keperra Country & Golf Club at BGC. Keperra also started the season with a win defeating Indooroopilly Golf Club 12-9 last Sunday. They are currently the longest serving team in Division 1 pennants and will know a win against BGC would put them in the ‘box’ seat for another Division 1 title.
In the other match this Sunday, RQ and Indooroopilly Golf Club play each other with both teams looking to bounce back from loses in Round 1 with a win. That match will be played at RQ.
Members are again encouraged to provide their support for our team. BGC will play Keperra from 7am with the Opens teeing off from Hole 1 and the Masters followed by the Juniors teeing off on Hole 10.
For those unable to attend, live score updates will be available via Instagram.
For the full results from Round 1 visit the BDGA website. www.bdga.org.au.